Flow required for proper 2-part dosing

[rsumner]

I found something very interesting over the past few days that I thought I would share and get opinions and feedback on. I've been dosing around 132ml of Calcium Chloride and 140ml of Soda Ash to my 140gal total system volume for quite some time with a fair success at keeping Calcium and Alkalinity volumes where I want with the added benefit of giving me a PH boost (due to the massive amounts of evaporation I experience). While I'd love to Alkalinity at around 8.5 or 9, I have never seen levels below 7.5ish.

I dose my 2-part in the the very back of the return pump section in my sump providing as much water volume and distance from where I dose in the return section and the actual return pump itself. My goal is to prevent precipitation (mainly the Soda Ash). Prior to a few days ago, I had a powerhead positioned in the front of my return pump section pushing to the back (away from the return pump) to give everything a really good mix prior to entering my return lines. I found this worked really well.

I tried removing the powerhead this past weekend to give a cleaning and just to see if it would have any impact on my Calcium and Alkalinity readings (note, I have not changed how much I'm dosing). I found that my Alkalinity dropped to 6.6 and Calcium to below 400. So, that makes me believe that these chemicals have started to precipitate either in the return section or in my return lines. The other possibility is that my corals have drastically increased their intake -- I did a about 5 frags and a bunch of snails early last week.

So, I added the powerhead back to the return section. I did end-up replacing the old Hydor Koralia with a Sicce Nano. The Sicce Nano powerhead is sooooo small and the power cord much longer.

What do you folks think?

 

[HotRocks]

I found something very interesting over the past few days that I thought I would share and get opinions and feedback on. I've been dosing around 132ml of Calcium Chloride and 140ml of Soda Ash to my 140gal total system volume for quite some time with a fair success at keeping Calcium and Alkalinity volumes where I want with the added benefit of giving me a PH boost (due to the massive amounts of evaporation I experience). While I'd love to Alkalinity at around 8.5 or 9, I have never seen levels below 7.5ish.

I dose my 2-part in the the very back of the return pump section in my sump providing as much water volume and distance from where I dose in the return section and the actual return pump itself. My goal is to prevent precipitation (mainly the Soda Ash). Prior to a few days ago, I had a powerhead positioned in the front of my return pump section pushing to the back (away from the return pump) to give everything a really good mix prior to entering my return lines. I found this worked really well.

I tried removing the powerhead this past weekend to give a cleaning and just to see if it would have any impact on my Calcium and Alkalinity readings (note, I have not changed how much I'm dosing). I found that my Alkalinity dropped to 6.6 and Calcium to below 400. So, that makes me believe that these chemicals have started to precipitate either in the return section or in my return lines. The other possibility is that my corals have drastically increased their intake -- I did a about 5 frags and a bunch of snails early last week.

So, I added the powerhead back to the return section. I did end-up replacing the old Hydor Koralia with a Sicce Nano. The Sicce Nano powerhead is sooooo small and the power cord much longer.

What do you folks think?

Interesting observation.

Have you by chance tested since you placed the new powerhead to see if the values increased back to where they were prior to removal of the powerhead?

 

[rsumner]

Interesting observation. Have you by chance tested since you placed the new powerhead to see if the values increased back to where they were prior to removal of the powerhead?

I'll test tonight and tomorrow without any manual dosing and provide some feedback.

 

[Brew12]

I found something very interesting over the past few days that I thought I would share and get opinions and feedback on. I've been dosing around 132ml of Calcium Chloride and 140ml of Soda Ash to my 140gal total system volume for quite some time with a fair success at keeping Calcium and Alkalinity volumes where I want with the added benefit of giving me a PH boost (due to the massive amounts of evaporation I experience). While I'd love to Alkalinity at around 8.5 or 9, I have never seen levels below 7.5ish.

I dose my 2-part in the the very back of the return pump section in my sump providing as much water volume and distance from where I dose in the return section and the actual return pump itself. My goal is to prevent precipitation (mainly the Soda Ash). Prior to a few days ago, I had a powerhead positioned in the front of my return pump section pushing to the back (away from the return pump) to give everything a really good mix prior to entering my return lines. I found this worked really well.

I tried removing the powerhead this past weekend to give a cleaning and just to see if it would have any impact on my Calcium and Alkalinity readings (note, I have not changed how much I'm dosing). I found that my Alkalinity dropped to 6.6 and Calcium to below 400. So, that makes me believe that these chemicals have started to precipitate either in the return section or in my return lines. The other possibility is that my corals have drastically increased their intake -- I did a about 5 frags and a bunch of snails early last week.

So, I added the powerhead back to the return section. I did end-up replacing the old Hydor Koralia with a Sicce Nano. The Sicce Nano powerhead is sooooo small and the power cord much longer.

What do you folks think?

This is very interesting. How are you dosing? Is it a manual dose all at once or is that where a doser discharges to?

 

[rsumner]

This is very interesting. How are you dosing? Is it a manual dose all at once or is that where a doser discharges to?

I use a Neptune DOS. Here's a screenshot of the dosing volumes daily from Apex Fusion:

My dosing volumes are about 4ml of Soda Ash at the top of the hour, 10 minutes later, and then again 10 minutes after that totaling 12ml every other hour. I dose calcium on the opposite hours starting at the top of the hour with 5.5ml, waiting 15 minutes and then dosing another 5.5mL totaling 11mL every other hour. I discharge the dose in the very back corner of my return pump section in my sump. My return pump in pushed to the front of the return pump section.

 

[Brew12]

I use a Neptune DOS. Here's a screenshot of the dosing volumes daily from Apex Fusion:

My dosing volumes are about 4ml of Soda Ash at the top of the hour, 10 minutes later, and then again 10 minutes after that totaling 12ml every other hour. I dose calcium on the opposite hours starting at the top of the hour with 5.5ml, waiting 15 minutes and then dosing another 5.5mL totaling 11mL every other hour. I discharge the dose in the very back corner of my return pump section in my sump. My return pump in pushed to the front of the return pump section.

Looks like a very solid plan. Mind my asking what your magnesium is at?

 

[rsumner]

Looks like a very solid plan. Mind my asking what your magnesium is at?

I tested for Magnesium about 3 days ago and my Red Sea Pro test kit shows about 1360ppm. I usually try to test all my water parameters daily but I always get too lazy to do Magnesium since it's so "involved". I'll give everything a good test tonight when I get home from the office.

 

[Brew12]

I tested for Magnesium about 3 days ago and my Red Sea Pro test kit shows about 1360ppm. I usually try to test all my water parameters daily but I always get too lazy to do Magnesium since it's so "involved". I'll give everything a good test tonight when I get home from the office.

That should be plenty high. I'm not sure why you had the change in demand just by reducing circulating flow in the sump. Very curious to see how your system responds with the new pump added.

 

[rsumner]

Parameters this evening:

Alkalinity: 7.3ppm
Calcium: 421ppm
Magnesium: 1520ppm
Nitrate: 3ppm
Phosphate: 0.024ppm
Temp: 77.5
Salinity: 34.6ppt

Keep in mind, that I manually dosed last night after doing my measurements (and adding the powerhead) to get Alkalinity up to 7.6 and Calcium up to 420 and then left my normal dosing run all day today. So, while this certainly isn't a scientific experiment, I'm fairly confident that without circulation in my return section, I was precipitating. I'll manually dose my Alkalinity tonight to raise it to 8.7 and provide some new readings tomorrow.